Have you ever been horrified and intimidated at the convoluted, jargon-reliant information about Internet marketing available on the Net?
Often it results in many companies becoming confused and therefore reluctant to put
into practice what would be a valuable and simple business resource when understood
and applied correctly.
Market Research consultant for Inteltab, Gordon Goodfellow, who is also an English
literature graduate, decided it was time for a change. Part of this desire to make
Internet marketing more accessible may be due to his past experience as a teacher.
“I was sick of all the gobbledegook that surrounds the Internet, even today,” he
explains. “Marketing on the Net isn’t rocket science and should not be presented as such.
Everyone should have access to it. That’s the beauty of it.”
Having spent four years researching and assessing the best way of getting an effective message across on the Internet, he began to design a basic introduction to Internet marketing. The result of this hard work is Applied Web Marketing. AWM is a comprehensive beginners guide to marketing on the Internet, covering everything from
domain names to e-commerce and merchant accounts, and written in plain English. This is designed for the small business user and the home business user who does not want to spend a fortune on outside “experts”.
The key to most of Internet marketing is search engine optimisation. The key to good
search engine optimisation is keyword research. In other words, knowing which keywords or search terms people are using to find what theyre looking for on the Internet. If keyword research is done properly then there is no doubt that you will get highly targeted visitors to your website. This is obviously the professional way of going about things. It is the antithesis to the “spam” approach (unsolicited commercial emails) which achieves extremely poor results and simply annoys anyone unfortunate enough to be on the receiving end.
But which search engine should you optimise for? The search engine of choice at the
moment is Google. There are two good reasons for this. Firstly, Google is the most popular search engine on the Internet today. It is known for the quality and relevance of its search results, and so people trust it. Secondly, over the last couple of years Google has joined alliances with other search engines and directories. Yahoo, the worlds most popular directory, uses Googles database, so if you have a first page listing on Google you are likely to have a first page listing on Yahoo as well.
AOL and Netscape also share Googles search findings, so youll have similar search
results on the AOL and Netscape databases. Other lesser databases also rely on Google,
so that if you are well represented on Google, then youll be well represented on over sixty per cent of Internet search facilities.
You should also obtain a listing on the Open Directory Project (DMOZ.org) which is not much known about but very well respected in the search engine optimisation industry. The Open Directory does not use the normal search engine “spiders” or robot searchers; instead it uses over thirty thousand volunteer human editors who are ostensibly experts in their own fields. The theory behind this is that it ensures relevancy, accuracy and quality of all listings. A listing in DMOZ will therefore ensure a listing on Google and probably earn you an enhanced ranking there. Then all the others, like Yahoo, AOL, Netscape and the rest are bound to follow.
Optimisation is everything. The Applied Web Marketing website itself has the number
one position on Google out of 1.47 million search results for the search term “applied
web marketing”.
After optimisation is the submission process. Perceived wisdom of the moment says it is best to submit manually. Manual submissions to dozens of search engines and
directories can be very time-consuming, however. There are some good automated and
semi-automated software packages available out there to do the submissions for you.
But for the major players do find the time for manual submissions. Some search
engines, for example Alta Vista, make it impossible for automated submission by
software programs, because of individualised text codes that must be entered by hand at the start of the submission process, so you have to submit to Alta Vista manually as well. But that just takes about three minutes.
Dont bother with ads that say that they can “blast your web site to 500,000 search
engines”. There arent that many search engines; theres only a few hundred in total, and only about a dozen of any major importance. Youll just pay your money and be very disappointed. Most of these so-called search engines are link farms, FFA or free-for-all sites, which nobody every looks at, and which are responsible chiefly for sending out spam. If you link to such web sites you risk being penalised by the bona fide search engines.
The next thing to have lots of is patience. A listing on Google should probably appear
within a couple of weeks if you have optimised your pages properly (incidentally, if you have multiple pages on your web site, as is mostly the case, it is important only to submit the index or home page, and let Googles spider “Googlebot” to find and index the other pages itself using the links that you should have set up on your site.
The Applied Web Marketing guide has useful links to many resources, lots of them completely free, and to the submission pages of the major search engines and
directories, making it a perfect site to begin your journey into the world of Internet marketing.
About the author:
Gordon Goodfellow is a market research consultant and practising Internet marketer and teacher.
www.appliedwebmarketing.com
gordon@apppliedwebmarketing.com
How to get big results with super-cheap fliers. Kevin NunleyRita started her home-based business after a long illness. Her insurance wouldn’t cover all her medical costs. She figured she could bridge the difference by selling her popular gift mugs.
Friends and the hospital staff had been delighted with them. She found herself busily filling orders for her customers’ relatives and associates.
“Wow,” she thought. “This could be the answer to my prayers. Selling my gift mugs could earn the extra money I need each month.”
One problem remained. In order to make the plan work, Rita needed lots of new customers. Word-of-mouth from friends and past clients was wonderful, but she needed a more powerful way to get the word out quickly.
A man at an ad agency told her to have nice brochures printed, mail them to hundreds of businesses, and place a weekly ad in the Sunday newspaper.
“But you don’t understand,” she protested. “Anything I spend on marketing has to come out of the grocery money. I can’t afford any of the conventional marketing options you’re talking about.”
It’s a situation that most of us have been in at one time or another. All the wonderful marketing ideas the experts talk about–radio ads, mass mailings, card decks–all take money. They require more money than we can spend without sinking down the debt drain.
Here’s one of my favorite solutions to the “no money” marketing crunch. For about 20 dollars you can have your corner copy shop print up 1000 fliers. A cheaper, more effective way to market has never been invented. A well-designed flier is like a full-page ad delivered directly to your carefully targeted prospect. No multi-thousand dollar newspaper ad can make that claim.
Keep your flier copy simple and to the point. Your prospect may only glance at it before tossing it in
the trash. You must make your offer within the first three seconds as her eyes run over the page. Start with a banner headline that sells the benefits your product, service, or organization will bring the prospect. Let them know how their life will be easier, happier, or more successful after they have bought from you.
Instruct the potential customer how to buy what you sell. A short “call me today!” or “stop by our store at lunch!” greatly increases your response. Include your name, phone, fax, email, website, location, hours–and anything else that makes it super easy for the prospect to contact you.
It costs no more to have your flier copied on colored paper, so choose a color that grabs attention but won’t make your copy hard to read. Lighter colors are best.
Many successful fliers have no pictures. Line drawings are easily copied. A photo needs to be half-toned first to give a clear photocopied reproduction. Your copy shop can prepare the photo for you. Also pay attention to the quality of the copier. Some of the newer, better maintained machines turn out photo copies that look as good as offset. The better copy shops often charge slightly more, and you may find the increase in copy quality well worth the slight increase in price.
Many shops have machines that staple rubber bands to each copy. This makes it easy to attach your flier to door knobs at homes and businesses. Be aggressive, but polite, when distributing your flier. Leave no stone unturned. Drop the fliers off on car windshields, under doors, on counters, light poles, community and office bulletin boards, and at schools.
Enlist the help of young people and youth groups to go door to door for you. Tell others with fliers that you will pass their’s around if they do the same with you.
I once put one of my fliers on a light pole in San Francisco. A year later a friend called in hysterics. “You’re in StarTrek IV!” While shooting on location, the movie crew had left my flier in the background of a scene. There was my photo and flier displayed prominently between Spock and Kirk. My message reached millions world-wide for the cost of a single copy–2 cents.
And that’s my two cents about fliers–one of the world’s cheapest publicity weapons.
About the author:
Kevin Nunley Associates is located at 54 Ponemah Road Amherst NH 03031. We answer email fast. Call us 603-249-9519. Online since 1996. Feel free to use Kevin’s articles on your web site, in your ezine, or in your sales materials.
www.drnunley.com
kevin@drnunley.com